Apple, Google sign new agreement to end poaching lawsuits

Four Silicon Valley companies including Apple and Google have entered into an agreement to resolve an antitrust class action lawsuit by tech workers, who accused the firms of conspiring to avoid poaching each other's employees, Reuters reported.

Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe Systems were accused in the plaintiff's 2011 lawsuit of limiting job mobility which kept a lid on salaries. The case had been under intense scrutiny due to the possibility of big damages being awarded and also the possibility of a peek into the world of some of US' elite tech firms.

US district judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, last year rejected a $324.5 million settlement of the lawsuit as too low after a plaintiff raised objections.

The worker's attorney Daniel Girard said the worker would support the new agreement, but Girard declined to disclose the amount, which was also not included in the court filing.

The case largely hinged on emails exchanged by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, former Google chief executive officer Eric Schmidt and other rivals in which they discussed plans to avoid poaching each other's prized engineers.

While rejecting the $324.5 million deal, Koh on several occasions referred to the 2013 settlement involving Disney and Intuit. Koh wrote, Apple and Google workers got proportionally less than Disney workers, even though plaintiff lawyers had ''much more leverage'' against Apple and Google.

Meanwhile Bloomberg reported that the companies, after resuming negotiations with the workers, in September asked a federal appeals court to overrule Koh's rejection of the initial settlement, saying she overstepped her authority.

The new settlement was confirmed today by Kelly Dermody, a lawyer for the workers, and Chuck Mulloy, a spokesman for Santa Clara, California-based Intel, even as they declined to elaborate.

An objection to the original settlement was filed by former Adobe employee Michael Devine, who left the company in 2008 and was a lead plaintiff in the case.

According to Devine's lawyer, Daniel Girard, if workers had not initially agreed to settle for an average payout of about $3,572, they could have won damages at trial of as much as $141,331 each.